posted on 2009-09-02, 11:22authored byC.R. Millington, Arian Nijmeijer, J.P. Robinson, Steve Tarleton
With the aqueous applications of crossflow filtration being well established, comparable
developments in the field of organic/organic liquid systems remain in their infancy. Progress within
the field has been hindered by the fact that there are few systems which are both robust to
hydrocarbon solvents and provide good fluxes/separations under realistic operating conditions.
The authors of the current paper have explored a number of materials for crossflow filtration of
organic media and found that the dense organic polymer PDMS (polydimethyl siloxane) affords the
best results (see Figure 1).
Building on initial results, a full assessment of the membrane performance has been undertaken.
Using a laboratory set-up, a range of pure and mixed hydrocarbon streams have been passed
across the PDMS to assess performance with time and under variable operating conditions.
Recent papers and presentations by the afore mentioned authors have considered transport
mechanisms across a 2 μm PDMS membrane supported on PAN.
Results from flat sheet experiments have been used to design a larger scale unit. The operation of
this system has shown excellent read across in terms of flux and selectivity. It is hoped that the
work detailed within this presentation will prompt other workers in the field to consider the
development of novel organic polymers to build on the applicability of filtration for organic/organic
separations.
History
School
Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering
Department
Chemical Engineering
Citation
MILLINGTON, C.R. ... et al, 2004. The assessment of materials for crossflow nanofiltration of organic/organic liquids and the development of scale-up options. IN: Conference Proceedings, World Filtration Congress 9, New Orleans, 18-24 April, session 222, paper 1.
Publisher
American Filtration & Separations Society
Version
AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publication date
2004
Notes
This article was presented at WFC9 and the conference proceedings are available from: http://www.afssociety.org/publications/afspublications.htm